Teekay Shipping is taking competence management to new heights, establishing as part of its business strategy its own competency management program called SCOPE. Det Norske Veritas recently issued a statement of compliance to Teekay for its system - the world's first competence management system certificate.
Teekay has made significant strides into the global shipping industry in the past decade. Whilst undergoing this period of rapid expansion, Teekay has been able to cultivate a personal approach to its customers. This strategy is opening new doors and further increasing the market potential for the company and its investors.
"Teekay is intent on expanding its activit-ies and the development of a formal competency management system is a logical step in our drive to reach this goal and further our continuous improvement and quality service to customers," says Graham Westgarth, president of Teekay Marine Services.
A listed company on the New York Stock Exchange, Teekay moved its head office from Long Beach, California to Vancouver in 1991. Today, the company has a global network of 16 offices.
As a publicly-listed company, Teekay has a strong desire to position itself as the premier tanker shipping company in the transportation industry. The company's core values are quality through professionalism, reliability and integrity; responsible safety and environment practices; responsiveness and creativity to customer's needs; loyalty to employees; competitive and entrepreneurial spirit; and continuous self-improvement. Says Westgarth, "Quality of organisations and processes will be more and more visible going forward. It is now a highly regulated industy, with greater demands. Certain standards of operation are customer driven, therefore, operation strategies need to support our business objectives."
Professionalism at Sea
For the last two years, Teekay has been developing its own competency management program which it calls SCOPE (Seafarer Competence for Operational Excellence). According to John Adams, head of maritime human resourses, based in Glascow, "It's our people who help us to achieve world class standards in safety and operations. Teekay developed SCOPE to establish the highest standards of professionalism at sea. The program supports our philosophy of continuing professional development."
The program goes well beyond legislative requirements for certificates of competency and includes Teekay Competencies; Management/Leadership Behaviour Competencies; Overall Knowledge and Understanding; Aptitude; Experience; and Attitude and Motivation.
Explaining the incentive for Teekay Shipping to be certified, Kevin Hewlett, director, seafarer competence & career development, says, "Scope allows us to support our staff in their individual development and in their contributions to our overall success."
The training administrator and computer-based training modules have been provided by Norway-based Seagull. Hewlett explains, "Working together, Teekay and Seagull have developed a new administrative system that will support the administrative requirements of the program. The system has the capability to handle a very large range and number of competencies and training requirements for all ranks - and there are approximateley 30 Teekay specific competencies within each rank. In addition, onboard computer-based training is used extensively."
Code of Practice
Commenting on DNV's competence management system, Hewlett says, "We discovered that Teekay and DNV were both separately developing *
competence management concepts. DNV perceived an industry need to compile a Code of Practice, which they have done through their DNV SeaSkill unit. We saw this as being very beneficial, as it brought together two sides of the shipping industry - the assessor and the operator. The first stage of the audit was recently carried out in Teekay's Glasgow office. The next stage of the certification process includes the audit of the entire Teekay Shipping fleet."
Business is going well for Teekay. A good foundation for the business was created by the company's success in the early 1980s. Over the past five years, the company has gone from being an owner operating 43 ships to an organisation now operating over 100 ships and managing another 20 or so. In this process, the company has acquired and merged with other shipping companies and taken them into the Teekay fold.
Teekay has now expanded into the LNG sector, as well as having already established a significant presence in the shuttle tanker market. The company is still focused on building its tanker business further, with a blend of fixed-rate and spot tanker segments.
Investing in ships and people
Comments Westgarth: "At Teekay, we are proud of our achievements in recent years, but we are continually striving to improve. With our ongoing investment in maintaining a large, modern, high-quality tanker fleet, the equipment side is well in hand. We've been active regarding personnel initiatives. The operational procedures area is also important to us and we have, over the past few years, strengthened our best practices through several initiatives, including the SCOPE system, shipboard training and refined ship safety-performance measures.
As one of the worlds leading shipping companies, Teekay has gained a reputation of having a better knowledge of the shipping business than many others. This has placed greater demands on the company, but has also given Teekay a competitive edge.
Westgarth describes the competition as tough, but emphasises that Teekay is committed to maintaining its market position and has a defined strategy to meet its customers requirements, and to assist them wherever possible.
"Teekay views the increased emphasis on environmental protection, personnel safety and improved operational practices in the shipping industry as an opportunity to continually improve the overall integrity of its operations. Ultimately, we also believe that our customer-oriented approach will differentiate us from our competitors," he says.
"This approach is being made easier through our work with DNV," concludes Westgarth, "and based on our experience so far, we're confident that the competence system work with DNV will help us achieve our goal of becoming the premier tanker shipping company while continuing to provide our customers with the best possible services."